Plus, "Elmo: The Musical" costs about $270,000 to make per segment, which is two million for all ten. I don't know how much the street stories cost to produce, but there are so many factors to the show (AFFS, SG 2.0, the various films and cartoon), I can understand where the money's going. If they can cut costs somewhere, I can deal. I mean, 21/26 isn't that bad; it could be a whole lot worse. Sure, I'd like to see 5 NEW episodes, but I'd rather get something new than nothing at all.

And as I said in the Kinect thread, the new game could (like the article above says) bring in quite a lot of money for SW it proves to be a success, which it has the potential to be.

There's gotta be a better cost cutting device than repeating episodes. Even if they did clip show story openers with linking footage. Repeating episodes wouldn't be so terrible if they didn't repeat things to oblivion in the first place. I understand the need to cut costs, but half the pickle they put upon themselves with daily episodes of AFFS and the need to have more celebrities than needed in a single season. I still don't see why they spent a fortune on those Ernie and Bert claymation segments, and refuse to air half of them. I wonder if they actually made more than one Munchin' Impossible and Elmo's Backyard though. If they did, they're sitting on them. That's money well spent. If not, shove the pilots into the show. And their phobia of using older material is ridiculous. That's cost saving right there.

But there is NO excuse for 26 episodes to have to stretch out the season until April. That's clearly PBS's fault.

Wow! Grover's getting a new song? I don't think he's had his own song in years (not counting what he sings in the Spider-Monster sketch). I wonder if it'll be Frank or Eric performing him in that.

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When the Spider-Monster sneak-peak appeared on YT, a staffer commented that Frank had done that bit, another Mr. Johnson bit and a song. The latter two haven't aired yet, so I'm guessing the song is this one.

I wonder if they actually made more than one Munchin' Impossible and Elmo's Backyard though. If they did, they're sitting on them. That's money well spent. If not, shove the pilots into the show. And their phobia of using older material is ridiculous. That's cost saving right there.

But there is NO excuse for 26 episodes to have to stretch out the season until April. That's clearly PBS's fault.

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I'm pretty sure the two shows were just pilots they were shopping around for international use. I'm guessing they didn't catch on.

But, the season not ending until April is quite ridiculous. If they aired a new episode every Friday like TEC did, then I wouldn't complain as much. But the fact that they air the first 13 randomly through November and then wait two months before airing more? Why? It doesn't make the season seem any longer.

PBS is always pulling that crap. I still loom back at season 14 and 15 of Arthur with disgust. Internationally, the show aired all 20 episodes one after another. It took 2 years for us to get them all, 5 in the fall, 5 in the Spring.

It's a pathetic attempt to stretch out the small number of episodes PBS orders to make it seem like the season is longer. I mean, I wasn't happy when it stretched to February, but April? And it's going to make those rerun street story episodes that SW has no choice but to make even worse, since I guess they're going to have the seasons where those episodes air interspersed with them (the whole basis of my complaint earlier).

I wish PBS used more of its money to work on it's children's line up, and less on getting rights to BBC dramas (with the exception of Sherlock, that stuff is brilliant). They have a pledge drive every other month, and we get the same self help book infomercials and bad music programs... I think it just goes to getting the rights to said infomercials and music programs. And they no longer do any Kid's pledge drives either.

I wish PBS used more of its money to work on it's children's line up, and less on getting rights to BBC dramas

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Again, they don't get sufficient funding to really do anything with their children's shows or anything... I know, I used to intern/volunteer at my PBS, we ended up seeing a SHARP decline in funds and pledges specifically for children's show because these radical right-wing home school groups were spreading their propaganda, "Just say no to Clifford" and what have you, because they were teaching tolerance. Those were their exact words, "teaching tolerance". Their claims were that shows like Sesame Street, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Arthur, etc were teaching homosexuality to kids, and that it's okay to be gay, and okay to accept gay people... so needless to say, our funding DROPPED considerably after (unfortunately, Tennessee, for the most part, is a VERY conserative Republican state, even though our folks at PBS are as liberal as they come). When that happened, in an attempt of desperateness, they raised the minimum pledge amount from $20 to $25 to make up for losses, but that didn't help, so they stopped having pledge drives altogether, and it's been since 2005 since we did one; now, they just have simple bumpers throughout the day, "You're watching East Tennessee PBS, show us your support, become a member today". That's their "pledge drive" now.

You mentioned that before, and I don't want to get into that discussion. But it shows how incredibly hateful, selfish, imbecilic, and Neitzschian those groups are. They feel everything is brainwashing kids, and that's their job.

But we don't get kid's pledges, and we're a blue state. We're even a production company PBS affiliate. We have, like, an adult's pledge month every other month and all the programming drops completely dead so Wayne Dyer can hock a bunch of books he "donated" to PBS (and I bet he gets a nice tax cut for that). Either that or some old fogey "My Music" or Celtic musicians singing decidedly non-Celtic music. No Wallace and Grommit, no PBS kids' show retrospectives/special episodes, no fun programming that shows what PBS is about. All because they want to get old people to give them their social security checks and put them in their will because said no one wants their whole half of a Hay Penny to got to public broadcasting because that's the government's wasteful spending.

And it looks like it is hurting Sesame Street significantly (to make sure this doesn't go off topic). They have like 5 or 6 sponsors and they still are under budget. Sigh... I bet McD's gave them a chunk of change until Nader's group whined about it (and the wrong side of the problem).

You know parental groups. Left, right or whatever, they're a menace. Even if they have the best of intentions, it's all about forcing their exact views onto other parents and their children, when we all know every child is different. They don't realize they cause more harm than good. But then, kids also need to learn to make their own decisions, and sometimes what parents are teaching their children actually is wrong. Case in point, these groups are afraid of spreading tolerance. Tolerance can only come when the younger generation discards the hateful rhetoric of the past. That's how society grows (or should).

But the fact of the matter is, taking it out on PBS and censoring media that a group doesn't agree with (especially a megalomaniacal, fear based, Fundamentalistic dogma group like this) flies in the face of the very freedoms we're supposed to have in this country that said groups will defend when they do something offensive and wrong.

What a lot of Americans (on both "sides") seem to forget is that TV's have Off buttons. No one is forcing your kid to watch something you don't like. Parents should spend more time encouraging their kids to play outside and less time attacking cartoon characters.

Well, it wasn't just Clifford they were singling out, they were going after SST, and Arthur, and they were even going after some non-PBS fixtures as well like SpongeBob and Little Lulu. Apparently that "We Are Family" spot with both the SST Muppets, Classic Muppets, Between the Lions, SpongeBob, other famous kiddy characters really drew outrage from those groups as well... somehow they saw THAT as gay tolerance propaganda for some reason.

Well, it wasn't just Clifford they were singling out, they were going after SST, and Arthur, and they were even going after some non-PBS fixtures as well like SpongeBob and Little Lulu. Apparently that "We Are Family" spot with both the SST Muppets, Classic Muppets, Between the Lions, SpongeBob, other famous kiddy characters really drew outrage from those groups as well... somehow they saw THAT as gay tolerance propaganda for some reason.

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The story goes that some idiot typed in the wrong web address and thought that it was a gay marriage initiative instead of a "Don't be mean to people of other races" initiative. Which only goes to show the importance of differentiating between dot coms, dot nets, and dot orgs. Type in the wrong one, and you could go from a PBS affiliate to a porn site or a virus site (or a porn site that gives you a virus).

But, to save face, they just ran with the whole racial tolerance= tolerance to everything, and that means the big scary gay. I still think that it's their subversive hide knowledge and control the young ones initiative to keep spitting out ignorant little zombie soldiers that do whatever they want. Any group that has the word "Family" in it clearly is using it as a manipulative tool to make it think that everything will put the sacredness of family in jeopardy, when the truth is old fanatical hatred will die out if people smarten up and stop giving a crap about it.

Which only goes to show the importance of differentiating between dot coms, dot nets, and dot orgs. Type in the wrong one, and you could go from a PBS affiliate to a porn site or a virus site (or a porn site that gives you a virus).

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OT, I know how that is... I once accidentally typed the wrong dot in a web address trying to access the Wayback Machine, but instead, I ended up on a Muslim/Islamic message forum.

OT, I know how that is... I once accidentally typed the wrong dot in a web address trying to access the Wayback Machine, but instead, I ended up on a Muslim/Islamic message forum.

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That's why anytime they use a website on a TV show, the network has to buy up the domain name before it airs or someone else will and put either inappropriate or dangerous content on it. People who are web savvy enough know this. You must ALWAYS check the web address and make sure that it ends in the right code. It will save you from viruses.